


After

by Laelior



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: BSing my way through the timeline like woah, F/M, Freeform, Grief/Mourning, Pregnancy, Spoilers, so many spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 12:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13904244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laelior/pseuds/Laelior
Summary: SPOILERS ahoy for the finale!After the fight for Lothal is over, Hera has to find a way to go forward.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> This is me, drowning in all of the Kanera feels after the finale. This fic covers a lot of ground and makes quite a few time skips along the way. It's also my first time writing for this fandom, so let me know what you think?

When Kanan died, she didn’t know.

He left behind a empty, aching void that was as bad as losing a limb. He’d been there, right there by her side, for so long she could hardly remember what it was like without him. She should have told him how she felt sooner. There was supposed to be more time, there was supposed to be an _after_ to all of this. But there wasn’t. Not anymore.

She added him to her family’s Kalikori as a way to remember him, to feel like he was still with her. But she didn’t know what he’d left behind. Not yet.

 

When Ezra undertook his plan to liberate Lothal, she suspected. She hadn’t felt quite right for days. She chalked it up to the aftereffects of Pryce’s interrogation droid, or the shock of losing Kanan. But when the feeling didn’t go away, she knew it was something different, something more.

She pushed the feeling aside. Either she would make it through this or she wouldn’t, and she couldn’t do anything about it now.

 

When the call went out to help the Rebel fleet in the skies over Scarif, there was no denying it anymore. She flew into battle with one hand on the helm, the other clutching her rounded belly like it would somehow protect the small, fluttering life growing there. Rex told her she was crazy for going at all in her condition, even as he volunteered to be her gunner along with Zeb. But she had to. The Rebellion needed her, and she needed it to keep going.

For Ezra. For Kanan.

What was the point of bringing Kanan’s child into the galaxy if the Empire still ruled it?

 

When the Rebels celebrated the defeat of the Death Star over Yavin IV, she held back tears watching a young would-be Jedi accept the highest honors the Rebellion could give him. Ezra should have been there, too, for all he’d sacrificed for the cause. He should have _been there_.

A swift, sharp kick in her ribs shook her out of her melancholy. It was Kanan’s human blood doing this to her. It had to be.  A Twi’lek baby would _never_ make her cry like this.

 

When her time came, Zeb was off pleading with his people to harbor fugitives from the Empire on Lira San. Sabine was with her, though, holding her hand through the pains and handing her the Kalikori when she needed to focus on the task at hand. She’d add another piece to it soon. Sabine had already offered to paint it for her.

And then it was time to push. She squeezed Sabine’s hand so hard she thought it might break, but the Mandalorian didn’t complain. She mopped the sweat from her forehead and told her she could do it, just a little longer, just a little more effort. But she couldn’t do it. Not like this. Not alone.

Not without Kanan.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a voice in her ear, telling her she could, that she wasn’t alone.

“Kanan?”

He wasn’t there, but he was with her.

Shortly after that, she greeted their son. Sabine wrapped him in a blanket and placed him on her chest while the medical droid cleaned up. He was tiny and pink, and his head was covered in a fine layer of dark brown hair over a slightly green tinged scalp. He looked at her with milky green newborn eyes that looked so much like his father’s.

Sabine smiled and wiped tears from her eyes. “He’s beautiful. Did you decide on a name yet?”

The baby gave a sleepy yawn and looked up again. She had the feeling he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her, at something, some _one_ who wasn’t there.

“Jacen,” she said. It just felt right for him. She felt the hand on her shoulder again and reached up to touch it, and for a fleeting second she almost felt like she _could_.

 

When Zeb held Jacen for the first time, the baby looked absurdly tiny in his arms. The Lasat held him carefully, like he was make of fine Corellian crystal.

“He smells nice,” he said uncertaintly.

Hera laughed for what felt like the first time in ages. Jacen opened a curious eye at Zeb and wrinkled his nose.

“I don’t think the feeling’s mutual.”

 

When she returned home to Ryloth for the first time in years, it was was without her son. The Empire still occupied her home planet. It was no place to bring a baby. He was safely on Lothal with Sabine. But she brought pictures of him to show her father, along with a transport full of relief supplies for the Free Ryloth resistance, smuggled past the blockade with Hondo’s help.

“He looks...human,” Cham told her.

“He looks like his father.”

“Another addition to your mother’s Kalikori, then, no?”

It had to be her imagination that she saw her father dab the corner of his eye with his sleeve. Cham Syndulla did _not_ weep.

 

When she took on the task of training new pilot recruits for the Rebellion, Jacen came with her. He had no shortage of people willing to care for him. Chopper was never far from him, especially when she was off flying missions. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was even becoming fond of her son. As much as Chopper was fond of anyone, anyway.

Rex doted on him. Something about never having had a childhood himself. He promised to teach him to shoot a blaster when he was old enough to hold it and told him stories about his brothers, all 1.2 million of them.

 

When it came time to leave Hoth, she wasn’t sorry to see the last of that frigid planet. It was too cold for a Twi’lek there, let alone a child. Jacen slept through just about the whole ordeal, snug in his little bunk on the Ghost, clutching his stuffed lothcat with one arm and sucking his thumb with the other.

 

When the Rebel Alliance pushed its assault on the Empire over Endor, she flew with Phoenix Squadron once again. She led the defense screen that protected Lando’s main attack wing on their approach to the second Death Star. She’d never forgotten how the idiot scoundrel tried to sell her to Azmorigan all those years ago, even if it had been part of a plan. But when the Imperials sprang their trap, she flew her heart out to keep the attack wing, and him, safe

And then it was over. The Emperor was dead, the Death Star II gone, and the Empire already splintering into factions that fought amongst themselves. It was over and they’d _won_.

“We did it, Kanan. I wish you could see it,” she said to no one in particular. And once again she felt that presence, the feeling of someone standing by her shoulder. “We did it,” she repeated.

Jacen was on Lira San, watched over by Chava like a doting grandmother. It was a shame, too. He would have _loved_ the Ewoks.

 

When the Emperor was gone, the whole galaxy knew about the Rebel heroes who brought the Empire to its knees. Everyone knew the names Skywalker, Organa, and Solo. But she made sure they knew the other names, too: Wren, Orrelios, Sato, Tano, Azadi, Kallus, and all the others. She told them about Bridger and Jarrus. She told the story of the boy who lit a fire across the galaxy with his message of hope, and then gave everything to save his home planet. She told them of the padawan who survived and grew into a Jedi and the bravest man in the galaxy.

She made _sure_ Jacen knew about his father.

And when he wandered toward Sabine’s mural of the Ghost crew, he unerringly pointed a little grubby finger at Kanan and smiled.

“That’s Papa.”

 

When the fighting was over, she was lost. Between her father’s crusade to free Ryloth, and the Rebellion against the Empire, she didn’t know what it was like to _not_ fight. Zeb offered to take her to Lira San along with Kallus, but she decided to take Jacen back to Lothal.

The Imperial structures were all but gone from the planet. A park stood in place of the old TIE fighter factory. Somewhere along the way, someone had put up a statues of Kanan and Ezra in the middle of the park. Sabine swore it wasn’t her, and she believed it. Sabine’s creations were much more colorful than the bronzed, larger-than-life statues.

Kanan would have hated it, once he had finishing laughing himself sick.

 

When Sabine left with Ahsoka to find Ezra, she didn’t allow herself to hope too much, even though she wanted to see him again as much as they did. Jacen wanted to go with them and meet his mysterious Uncle Ezra for the first time, and was disappointed when he couldn’t go. In truth, she was, too. But this wasn’t her mission.

“He’s as strong with the Force as his father,” Ahsoka told her before she left. It wasn’t a surprise to her.

“Will you train him? When he’s older?”

Ahsoka didn’t answer, just giving her an inscrutable look. Jedi. It was impossible to get a straight answer out of them.

Jacen waves them goodbye as they boarded their ship, holding back tears as his beloved Auntie ‘Bine left without him. She wiped the corners of his eyes with her knuckles and held him close.

“They’ll be back, love.”

“When?” He wailed, his sorrow overcoming his boyish pride.

“I don’t know, but we’ll see them again,” she said with certainty. Find Ezra wasn’t her task, no matter how much she wished it was.

Her task was different. There were still battles to fight, just of a different kind. She’d traded her blasters for words and laws. She hated it, preferring the more straightforward tactics of war to the backroom dealings of politics.

But if it make the galaxy a better place, a safer place for her son, she would do it.

For Ezra. For Kanan.

For Jacen.

**Author's Note:**

> I have one of those [tumblr](https://laelior.tumblr.com/post/171648545712/after) things.


End file.
